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Radio Free Montone: Going All Out To Stop The Killing

By John Montone, 1010 WINS

The NYPD is going "all out" to stop the killing.

As 1010 WINS newsman Glenn Schuck reported Monday morning, some 330-police officers are being deployed to the city's most violent neighborhoods; East New York and East Flatbush in Brooklyn, Hollis Queens as well as to high-crime housing projects.  The "Summer All Out," program is an attempt to slow the city's rising murder rate.  Homicides are up almost 20% this year and while that number is based on 2014's record low murder rate, we are also seeing a lot more people getting shot.

Most of the people Schuck talked to in East Flatbush said they would welcome more cops. But one man admitted he's used to the crack of gunfire.

Mayor de Blasio who has refused to put money for 1,000 more police officers in his municipal budget, claims most of the shootings and killings are gang-related.  And while that may be true when gang-bangers fire their weapons with impunity innocent people get caught in the crossfire. PBA President Pat Lynch is calling for more cops and less second guessing of police by politicians.  And Ed Mullins who heads up the police Sergeants' union claims restrictions on "stop and frisk," have handcuffed the police and as a result, "The perps are no longer afraid to carry their guns."  It was an armed career criminal who shot and killed officer Brian Moore.

But the mayor insists that now people are being stopped when they've done something wrong and in fact, stops by cops were way down last year as well and so were murders.

Radio Free Montone: Summer All Out

Too often the debate has been predictable and simplistic. Some community leaders claim, "Stop and Frisk," was racial profiling while the mayor's political opponents jump on every blip in the crime stats to warn of a return to, "The bad old days."

It is sad to say but as long as the bullet-riddled bodies are found in a few scattered outer borough neighborhoods the murders will make the occasional headlines then fade from our collective memory.

But if armed gang members begin shooting at each other on a midday in Midtown, well then, people won't forget.

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